things, and have found in a life of sometimes hard and painful experience, that everything can be accomplished by industry and perseverance. What there is not genius for, labor can do, and do right well- and this nobody doubts. Genius may have invented railways, and steam engines- but labor, glorious, earnest labor-worship, makes the roads, and puts the machines in motion on them. Talent may have applied steam to transporting ships across God's mighty waters, and explained how the swift electric current might pass along little wires from one end of the land to the other, conveying thought, and transacting business

but it was work, skill, industry, that made them available; and so we might enumerate how genius conceives the picture and the statue, how it supplies thousands of ideas to mankind; but we shall always have to conclude the chapter with the good old proverb, Orate et Laborate; and in our day we especially want to remember the prayer― the labor we seldom forget.

But in what respect is Drawing of consequence to the educator? I was asked this question not many days ago, and answered, as I was told, in true American fashion, by asking another. In what respect is it not of importance to the educator? Where can the line of its utility be drawn? Take Geography, Botany, Natural History, Geometry, Geology, Architecture - it goes into all these, and you cannot do without it. Who does not know that anything described is imperfect if it is not also represented? This every teacher is well aware of, from the exaggerated ideas children form of objects they

have only read of. There is not one child in a thousand, that, by reading of the little island of Britain, can form the most distant idea of its real size, appearance, or grandeur. And it is a well known fact, that Europeans who come to America, have the most absurd notions of what sort of a place it is. The pictures they have in their minds are too ludicrous to describe, and too well known to need description from me. But if the means of knowledge that faithful delineation can present to the mind, were made bountiful use of, these errors could not well exist. Again, we speak to children of tropical plants, which they cannot get a sight of at the time needed, and how many get a truthful idea of their luxuriance and beauty? But if the teacher can step to the black-board and faithfully portray the objects spoken of, naming at the same time their extent in height and breadth, do you not think the impression is not only likely to be more correct, but also more enduring?

All things that tend to elevate education, or forward intellectual progress, are worth our most earnest consideration; and while I may speak strongly in favor of Art, I would by no means elevate it unduly. Education is like the human frame, made up of many members, and all I claim for the member now spoken of, (and I am prepared to sustain the claim,) is, its proper place. It has not yet had it; but it shall be no fault of mine if it do not find it. It has been hitherto an addendum to education, not part of it- a patch put on, not part of the whole garment; but it is time it became incorporated into our educational systems,

and was looked to as essential to sound instruction, and not placed among the things that may, or may not be learned, according to the whim or humor of the individual.

The faithful teacher knows full well how vast a power it gives him to conjure up living realities before the young mind, to incite generous criticism, to awaken thought, to create a love for the abstract sciences, to infuse into the innocent soul of childhood bright hopes and happy thoughts; to hang as it were a silver cloud of beauty over life, and make the remembrance of our early days a picture that shall soothe the rough and troubled ways of manhood, and soften down the asperities of declining years, and cause our exit from this glorious world to be a foretaste of the more glorious one beyond.

This may be called dreaming; but, if it is, it is the dream of waking hours, to me the blest remembrance of my early days; it is the light of home, the smile my mother wore, when she sent me forth, with kiss and blessing, on my mission in the world; and with the growth of years I find, thank God, there is no decline. Art is still my mistress, and a faithful one; for she woos me forth to Nature, and makes the heart bound light with love for all things, because they are beautiful and good. The trees are still as pleasant and the grass as green, the flowers as fragrant and streams as musical, as when my mother told me "flowers were so beautiful, because He who made them was so too."

I love Art, because it surrounds me with Beauty; and for other reasons too. I can and do dream often,

and frankly confess my fault, and hope never to be rid of it. But it is useful, it aids education, it assists science, it forwards commerce, it glads the heart, it brings to us the loved faces of distant friends, it decorates our homes, and makes our temples glorious; it places the fountain on the green lawn, and plants the glorious trees, to give refreshing shade; it is the breathing forth of the innate forms of the inmost soul, the expression of a spark divine, a living, longing after goodness, and that goodness throned in beauty.

It should be common, because all love it; and it would not, as it is often said, injure any by being so, but would answer the best ends of life the commoner it grew. Where, say some, would be your designers, if all could draw? They would be more in demand than now; and for this reason we like beauty of the highest order we can possibly approach; and by all learning to draw, it would only elevate the standard of Design, and that which now passes current for beauty would then be cast aside as not beautiful, or treasured as it should be to show the growth of human skill. Design would be more in demand, because it would be cheaper; and it would be as profitable to the designer, because it was in demand. But the artists, where would they be? Where they should ever be, when they are true to their mission on the earth-in the highest realms of holy thought, painting for God and immortality, not pandering to bad taste, or painting to live-but living to paint! We should then see a revival of the days of Angelo, Raphael, and Guido; a renewal of the sublime in

religion and history; a picturing of scenes that should elevate every beholder-pictures that should exalt and not degrade, arousing feelings of holy awe, and an acknowledgment of the presence of God in their works. We should then have more of those men, whose lives beam forth from the canvass in their pictures like living things, awakening thought that blesses, not degrades;-things fit to look upon, without coming away with polluted eyes and unhallowed thoughts.

Fear not for the artists, for they have no fears for themselves; there is not one in this wide world that does not thank God from his very soul for every effort made to advance the cause in which he labors.

Therefore we may strive to use Art, and make it everybody's property; and if it accomplishes no higher end than fitting the artisan and mechanic to better understand the works their hands produce, it will not be in vain. While speaking of its utility in the industrial productions of our country, let me endeavor to show its commercial importance to this land.

America is becoming every day more and more a manufacturing country. That its progress in this department has been rapid, no one will be foolish enough to gainsay, because it would be untrue, and therefore unjust.

Now what is the reason, or is there any, why it may not become, especially in certain departments, one of the first, if not the foremost in the world?

Cotton grows here, and is therefore cheaper and more available, as a commercial commodity, than it